Matthew MurrayToshiba Satellite P755-S5390The Toshiba Satellite P755-S5390 laptop is a top-notch performer of most traditional processing tasks, but it lacks gaming prowess and an ability to survive long away from a power outlet.

The Toshiba Satellite P755-S5390 laptop is a top-notch performer of most traditional processing tasks, but it lacks gaming prowess and an ability to survive long away from a power outlet.

Sometimes all you need is a computer that can get things done. That description definitely applies to the Toshiba Satellite P755-S5390 ($799.99 list at Staples), a good-size laptop with an eye-catching design and some forward-thinking hardware that propels it to success at almost any everyday task you can throw at it short of gaming. Its battery life leaves something to be desired, but aside from that it’s a surprisingly powerful and well-rounded system that just narrowly misses out on the top tier of mainstream models.

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DesignWeighing 5.6 pounds and measuring 1.1 by 13.4 by 9 inches (HWD), the P755-S5390 is about average in terms of portability. Toshiba calls the color of its plastic chassis “Platinum,” but we call that optimistic: Think of it as a shiny dark gray with a raised and textured horizontal pattern (which Toshiba also dubs its Fusion X2 Finish) gracing the lid and palm rest; the striping extends to the keyboard deck and the touch pad, too, though they look much darker and more matte in style. Also on the lid you’ll find a silvery Toshiba logo; extending around edge of the lid and the inside of the laptop is a smooth and shiny border. The bezel surrounding the 15.6-inch widescreen 1,366-by-768 display (in which there is, of course, a webcam) and the chiclet-style keys are regular black, with the latter bearing subdued light-gray printing rather than a blaring white.

You do get that color, however, when you turn on the laptop. You'll see it in the system power and activity lights, a strip on the touch pad, and the Satellite logo on the lower-left corner. It's also prominent in the row of media-control and other laptop-function keys located near the display hinge: one starts the Toshiba eco Utility, one toggles the wireless on and off, one plays or pauses your media, one mutes the sound, and a strip lets you adjust the volume).

A nice addition to the keyboard is a full-size number pad; the space bar, alas, is unusually short and squat in design, which can occasionally make it difficult to press. Located above the touch pad is a button that deactivates it, and the mouse buttons are located below; they’re soft and only moderately clicky, but as part of the design scheme they’re coated with the same material as the slick outside border of the laptop, which can make your fingers slide across them.

FeaturesThe Intel Core i7-2670QM processor in the P755-S5390 is an especially robust chip: It has four processing cores that can divide into eight threads by way of Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology, and it has a standard clock speed of 2.2GHz that can rise to as much as 3.1GHz when Turbo Boost is activated. As a member of Intel’s second-generation Core (aka “Sandy Bridge”) family, this CPU also gives you access to that line’s full swath of features, including Quick Sync Video (for accelerated media format conversions) and Wireless Display 2.0 (for streaming content to your HDTV if you own a Netgear Push2TV adapter).

Rounding out the components are 6GB of DDR3 RAM that’s upgradable to 8GB; a 640GB hard drive; 802.11b/g/n wireless networking; and built-in Harman Kardon stereo speakers. On the left edge of the system you’ll find VGA and HDMI ports for outputting video to an external display, an Ethernet jack, and two USB ports: one 2.0 and one the faster 3.0. A multiformat card reader is positioned at the very center of the laptop’s front edge; on the right edge are the headphone and microphone jacks, two USB 2.0 ports, and the DVD burner.

Preinstalled on the hard drive are the Windows 7 Home Premium operating system, and some additional software items you may or may not find useful: Windows Live Essentials, a 30-day trial of Norton Internet Security 2012, Microsoft Office Starter 2010, Skype, and the expected swath of Toshiba tools and utilities.

Customers who buy this system from Staples can avail themselves of several services the retailer offers. This includes setting the new system up, data transfer from your old PC to your new one, software installation, and tech support and protection plans that range in price from $14.99 to $169.99.

PerformanceThe P755-S5390 is a bit difficult to categorize in terms of performance. Though the laptop’s price places it squarely in the mainstream category, its processor is a fair sight better than what we usually see in this class—but the system lacks the robust rounder edges we’d usually use to identify a desktop replacement laptop. So compared with other midrange systems, the P755-S5390 comes out on top in all cases, even against our Editors’ Choice Asus U46E-BAL5 ($699.99 list, 4.5 stars) and the more gaming-oriented, Sandy Bridge version of the HP Envy 14 ($1,079.99 direct, 4 stars). It nabbed a straight 2,400 in our PCMark 7 overall performance test, whereas the Asus U46E-BAL5 reached only 2,215; the P755-S5390’s times of 1 minute 31 seconds in Handbrake and 3:39 in Adobe Photoshop CS5, and its score of 5.35 in CineBench R11.5, were markedly better than what we saw from any other similar system we tested.

Even more disappointing were its gaming capabilities. The P755-S5390 could never get above (or even close to) our 30-frames-per-second (fps) threshold for smooth playability; it cracked into the very low 20fps on both our Crysis and Lost Planet 2 tests (at 1,024-by-768 resolution, with medium details), but no higher. In both cases, these numbers were better than those of the Asus U46E-BAL5, but the HP Envy 14 did much better in Crysis (45.5fps) and in our 3DMark 06 video benchmark test (7,751 versus 4,992 for the P755-S5390 at 1,024 by 768; and 6,509 versus 4,139 at the systems’ native resolutions).

Battery life, on the other hand, was far from the P755-S5390’s strong suit. Loaded with its standard 48Wh battery, it only lasted 4 hours 11 minutes during our MobileMark 2007 battery-rundown test—more than an hour shorter than what you get with the HP Envy (5:15) and less than half what the Samsung QX411-W01 can deliver (a stunning 8:48). Even looked at against desktop replacement systems it’s a poor showing—the lowest amount of life among them comes from the most recent 15-inch Apple MacBook Pro ($2,199.99 direct, 4 stars)—and even that ekes out 4:40.

Unlike our Editors’ Choice, the Asus U46E-BAL5, the Toshiba Satellite P755-S5390 isn’t intricately appointed in every area: You won’t find on it the Asus U46E-BAL5’s larger hard drive, more RAM, WiMAX, remarkable longevity when not plugged in, or lower price. So we have to let the Asus U46E-BAL5 retain its edge, despite the P755-S5390’s superior performance on all our productivity tests. Even so, the P755-S5390 stands out from the mainstream crowd and is absolutely worth considering if you have a lot of work to do—and quickly.

Matthew Murray got his humble start leading a technology-sensitive life in elementary school, where he struggled to satisfy his ravenous hunger for computers, computer games, and writing book reports in Integer BASIC. He earned his B.A. in Dramatic Writing at Western Washington University, where he also minored in Web design and German. He has been building computers for himself and others for more than 20 years, and he spent several years working in IT and helpdesk capacities before escaping into the far more exciting world...
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